LinkedIn was created for business persons to communicate with each other. You can improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your profile so that you are more likely to appear on the Google search engine results pages, as well as making your profile more prominent and easy to find on the LinkedIn website itself. LinkedIn is not as prominent on the Google search engine results pages because contacting people on there is not so easy sometimes, but the new Google Hummingbird update may soon change all of that, so it is wise to start optimizing your LinkedIn profile now.
Make sure you fill out every section on your profile
This is imperative, as they are there for a reason. It is not like Facebook where there are parts that you can and cannot fill in and it does not matter. The only time it does not matter on LinkedIn is if the thing it is questioning you about is literally nothing to do with you. For example, if it asked for your limited company ticker number and you where/are not a limited company, then you would leave it blank. Otherwise, fill in every bit of your LinkedIn bio and profile.
Filling out your profile is important
Think about how people are going to read your profile. Google are very eager to make everything all about the user. This means that they are phasing out things that apply directly to the search engines and are trying to make it all about the user in every way. So it is up to you to think about how your website is viewed by others.
Look at the profiles of other people
You can start by going to look at some other profiles to see how they have done it. Look for blank spots on their profiles and look at how glaring it is. Look at how they have filled out their profiles. Take notes on what are bad and what are good. Look at some of the factors they have included and think about how you could include them. For example, are you going to write BA or bachelor of the arts? How have other people written it, and how is it formatted? Look at what looks good to you, and steal the good ideas whilst avoiding their mistakes.
What did other people do to rank so highly?
All of this research is relevant because firstly the LinkedIn results you are seeing on Google are probably the ones that are the best optimized. Secondly, you can pull lots of ideas from their profiles in order to make your profile better, and thirdly you are going to see evidence of why their profiles are ranking so highly. It may be that they have a lot of contacts, but you will also notice that it is because they have been thorough when filling out their profiles, whilst still being concise.
Think about the questions that may lead people to you
This is an idea that Google are playing with a lot these days. They are more interested in questions and less interested in keywords. So, instead of strategically placing keywords on your profile, think about what questions people may ask before they drop on your profile.
Things related to your service are possible, so let’s say that you paint houses, then a suitable question may be “who can clean my house in Randy Town?” If you optimized your profile with a relative answer to this question, then you may do better when it comes to ranking up your profile. This is especially true when it comes to location based queries, as it removes a lot of your competition from other companies online.
Keep up to date with current SEO updates
There are often rule changes internally within social media networks and within the Google search engine. This means you need to keep up to date with the most recent ranking updates for LinkedIn, and for Google. The LinkedIn profiles do appear on the Google search engine results pages, but normally only if you type in a person’s name and it has already shown you the Facebook and Twitter answers for that name. However, the wind is changing, and the hummingbird update is having an effect.
This may mean that optimizing your LinkedIn profile for internal ranking is just as important as ranking for external ranking via something such as the Google search engine. It is also a good idea to update your LinkedIn profile from time to time to make it appear that you are conscientious about keeping your information on there accurate.